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Film Review : Amour (2012)

Academy Award Winner for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award Nominee for Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture
Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or Winner

…and there I sat staring at my television.

This is the third time this has happened to me after viewing one of Michael Haneke’s films. The other two films being Cache and The Piano Teacher. This film however left a different lasting effect on me. The film tells the story of an elderly couple trying to get through life after after Anne, played stunningly by Emmanuelle Riva, suffers a stroke. Jean-Louis Trintignant gies a tour de force portrayal as Anne’s husband Georges who now has to care for her.

Like most of Haneke’s films, there really isn’t a lot to say about Amour. His films are the essence of emotion for me. He may just be the best director living today. I’m a self acclaimed Paul Thomas Anderson fanboy but I can’t possibly choose between the two. They are different and yet make films that leave such a lasting impression on the viewer. Amour is exactly about the films title, love. Riva and Trintignant put entire lifetimes worth of experiences and emotions into their characters and it’s absolutely heartbreaking to see them together. I’ve always been able to forget that what I’m seeing on the screen is a film and tell myself not to be too upset or angry with the people I’m watching, but it was hard with this one. The realism just seeps through and as a person with a grandfather going through the exact same thing Anne was going through in the film, it was a tough but important watch.

This is an important film. It’s a complete portrayal of the bounds humans go through to care for the people they love. Haneke holds nothing back. It’s a personal film unlike any other really. I’m actually happy this film lost the Best Picture award to Argo last year because this film really wasn’t in the same league as the others. It’s a film that requires patience and a strong will to get through but rewards the viewer with such a real experience into what thousands of people go through every day. How can you compare that to films about a tiger in a boat or a murderous slave hellbent on revenge?